Xbox modders charged with copyright crime

CNet reports that: "Two owners of a Los Angeles game store and a third man face a up to five years in prison on charges filed Monday in a federal copyright infringement case for selling modified Xbox game consoles, prosecutors said. The modifications allowed the machines to play pirated video games, they said."

The three men are being accused of "conspiring to traffic in a technology used to circumvent a copyright protection system and conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement," in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Jason Jones and Jonathan Bryant, two Los Angeles residents who own the ACME Game Store on Melrose Ave., allegedly sold Xbox game systems that had been modified by Pei Cai, of Pico Rivera, Calif.